Fitness Business School – Get More Online Clients

Full Transcript

Hey Pat Rigsby here. And in this episode, I want to give you a three step process to getting more clients online. So these three steps have helped me, I know they’re going to help you too. Let’s get to it.

Welcome to the fitness business school with Pat Rigsby, the podcast for fitness entrepreneurs who want to make more income, have greater impact, and enjoy more freedom in their ideal business. If you’d like an accelerated route to these goals, email me at [email protected] and put BGA in the subject line and I’ll get you all the details about our business growth accelerator program.

So especially in kind of the COVID era, if you will, we, we hear so many people talking about online marketing because even if they were doing offline marketing, you know, it’s been throttled back, even if they were great at going out and doing lunch and learns or public speaking, they were great at networking. A lot of that stuff, they feel like maybe hasn’t been as available to them as it was before. And so they doubt dove in more on this online marketing approach. Now, from my perspective, that’s kind of good and bad. I’m excited to see the fitness professionals, fitness business owners are eager to market, period. When I got into this industry, and even when I, I kind of dove in head first in the business coaching consulting side of it, getting people to market and not just wait around for business to come to them or be reliant on word of mouth. That was probably the hardest challenge that I have. Now. It seems like marketing is an understood prerequisite to have a healthy, successful business. But, you know, I think a lot of people have, have focused entirely online and neglected some of those offline opportunities. But I mean, we all should be marketing online. I just don’t know that we all need to only be marketing online. And with that in mind, I want to give you some tips specific to that online platform today to that online kind of marketing channel.

And the first is really identifying who your prospects are. I talked to people each and every week, clients that are coming into our coaching programs. I mean, I’m doing, you know, four or five group zooms a week, as well as like the rest of my team doing, you know, that are more. And you know, I’m always talking to people who they’re not really clear enough on who their prospects are because in the past they’ve always felt just, you know, Hey, I’m focused on this group of people who are in a close geographic proximity, they’re in a three mile radius, a five mile radius, a 10 mile drive, or a 10 minute drive time. And they don’t think much else about them other than, well, there are people who want to spend money on getting fit. But the challenge there is, if you don’t know more about who your prospects are, you’re definitely not going to get their attention online because there’s so many things really kind of rolling through people’s feed on whatever platform that they choose that you’re not going to stand out by just putting up a fitness ad.

Understand that an ad is very much a commercial. So if you were watching a TV show, a commercial, when you flip through the channels or you go to the kitchen or something like this. So if you’re going to get somebody’s attention, it has to be valuable to them. You got to speak directly to them. So in order to do that, you need to know them. And then the other thing about it is if you don’t know exactly who your prospects are now, we’re kind of just competing on price or convenience because there’s no other real reason that they need to choose you. So know exactly who you’re trying to market to, whether that comes to targeting on social media, or just understanding who you’re speaking to or who you aspire to speak to. So that’s number one.

Number two, once we know that we want to be as specific as possible with our message, we want to really hone in on what our prospects want and really how they get it. I’ve told my clients for, for quite some time, think about the question they ask and just answer those questions. Don’t be evasive. Don’t be tricky. Don’t just talk about the things that you like and care about. What questions do they ask, answer those things. What questions should they ask? Answer those things as well. So they can be a more informed prospect so they can sift through and filter all this information coming their way. So if you want a couple of questions that can, or a couple, I think frameworks may be that can help you create whether it be a paid ad or just an organic posts. Here are a couple that will help you. How about do blank if you want blank. So do this particular exercise. If you want this result, try this particular nutrition strategy. If this, if you want this particular outcome, right? So do this. If you want this, and then the second would be, do you want -blank- question mark? So it’s engaging. It’s intriguing. It’s something that they’re interested in, but there’s a curiosity, curiosity factor, because it’s a question. So now in both of those cases, if they want something we’re saying, okay, I am speaking directly to you. You want this particular benefit. And in both cases, we’re giving them something valuable that helps them move from where they are, to where they want to be. We teach them how to get what they want. So simple, right? We know who we’re talking to. We are specific with our message in a way that shows them that we can help them go from where they are, to where they aspire to be.

And then finally, we need to show up more often, you know, we can’t be episodic with what we do. We can’t just post with some real irregularity. We can’t run ads in this intermittent fashion. We have to understand that there are so many things tugging at people’s attention. Like I mentioned earlier, that if we’re not showing up consistently, we’re going to get overlooked. We’re going to get ignored and we’re going to get passed by from the people who are showing up consistently. So there are a couple of different studies that, that, that I kind of really hang my focus on because consistency is something that I’ve tried to make a hallmark in my business. The first is that, you know, one study showed that once somebody has made a buying decision, they say, okay, I am going to buy, it takes 32 impressions from an advertiser before that advertiser actually gets the transaction. There has to be some repetition. You know what I mean? We we’ve heard all these things. You know, we need this many touch points for a sale. We need this many impressions if we’re doing a radio spot, that sort of thing. But you know, 32 exposures to a brand before they’re calm, comfortable, and confident trusting that brand.

And then the second, and this is another one that I think really has been a foundational kind of thing for me, that I, that I learned through a study my friend, Dean Jackson shared, and that was, you know, researching literally millions of consumers, consumers that were interested in a particular purchase. It didn’t matter what industry, it didn’t matter if it was a service or a good and of those people. 50% of them eventually bought right, 50% eventually bought. But out of that, 50%, 85% of those people did not buy within the first 90 days. So very few of those people were what we would call immediate gratification. People, you know, they needed more nurturing. They needed more follow-up because they were doing some research or maybe, you know, they were exploring their options. And they were just kind of initially expressing some interest and considering things over time. I know for me, we just bought a new house. Well, I mean, it wasn’t the first house we looked at and it certainly wasn’t the first day that we thought about buying a house that we made that transaction. And I think that’s the case with most meaningful purchases or meaningful commitments. You know, we, we start to think about it. We do some investigation, whether it’s looking at review sites or, or just kind of noticing things when they come up, but we’re, we’re now more attentive than we’ve been. And that takes a little bit of time before we make a purchase. So long story short, you need to follow up and show up more consistently. You need to be advertising more regularly. You need to be doing posts that follow that, knowing who you’re talking to. And speaking specifically to them, you need to do all that stuff with great regularity and consistency. If you want to show up for your prospects in a way that compels them to become a client, if you do these three things, your online marketing will become so, so much more effective. And frankly, these traits, these habits can be carried over into offline as well, but they’re super effective when it comes to this noisy online marketing landscape. So put them into Action and watch your business grow.

Thanks for listening. I’m giving away a bundle of my bestselling books, the ideal business formula, the fitness entrepreneur handbook in the path. All you have to do is go to patrigsby.com/podgift to get it. Also, make sure to subscribe to The Fitness Business School with Pat Rigsby so you don’t miss an episode and you get yourself on the fast track to creating your ideal business.